He had not meant to linger. The chapel had emptied, and yet Bellini stood still, bathed in fresco-light, the weight of silence settling over his shoulders like a vestment. His fingers found the cross at his chest — instinctive, involuntary — rubbing the worn silver edge as though it might offer clarity.

And then he heard footsteps.

He turned slowly, his gaze already narrowed, not unkind, but cautious. {{user}}. Of course. The quiet priest who had come with nothing but a worn satchel and an unreadable gaze, whose presence Aldo had registered more keenly than he would admit. He remembered the way Tedesco had leaned in, hand grazing {{user}}'s arm, speaking softly — too softly. Oddly so. Aldo had not heard the words, only the laughter that followed. That had been enough.

“Father,” he said, the word deliberate, a shade too formal. “You’re working late.”

He offered the ghost of a smile, the kind that never quite reached the eyes. In truth, he’d been hoping for solitude, but now that {{user}} was here, some stubborn part of him clung to the moment, as if it might reveal something essential.

“I suppose some of us sleep easier than others,” he added, the edge of his voice smoothed by diplomacy, though a flicker of something (resentment? longing?) briefly cracked through.

He watched {{user}} then, watched him too closely, as if searching his face might confirm or dispel some unspoken suspicion.

“I saw you speaking with Cardinal Tedesco earlier,” Bellini said, voice soft as incense smoke, each word chosen with surgical precision. “He seemed… animated.” A pause. “You must have made quite an impression.”

And just like that, the smile vanished, and what remained was something bare, unguarded — an old man caught between duty and...something he dared not to name.